Mother listens to dead son’s heart beating in another body

Mother listens to dead son’s heart beating in another body

ISTANBUL

The parents of a Bulgarian man whose heart was transplanted last year to a Turkish man have recently visited Istanbul to meet the recipient.

Twenty-six-year-old Iliya Zilkov died after brain surgery in Istanbul in 2017. Following the young man’s death, his parents decided to donate his organs.

One of the recipients was Hakan Ok, a 27-year-old man, who had been waiting in the intensive care unit of a hospital for seven months for a suitable donor for the hearttransplant operation. Zilkov’s heart was transplanted to Ok.

Almost one year after the operation, Plamena Zhekova, Iliya’s mother and Boyan Zhekov, the man’s father, traveled to Istanbul to meet Ok.

The Bulgarian family and the Turkish man met at a hospital in Istanbul’s Koşuyolu neighborhood where the transplant operation was performed.